The federal government apparently assesses the impact of the Federal Constitutional Court’s ruling on the climate fund to be more serious than previously assumed. Federal Finance Minister Christian Lindner (FDP) is extending the budget freeze imposed on the Climate and Transformation Fund (KTF) to almost the entire current budget, i.e. that of 2023. This emerges from a letter from Lindner’s State Secretary Werner Gatzer, which is available to the SZ and which was first reported by the Reuters news agency.
Specifically, it is about so-called commitment authorizations. A commitment authorization allows an administration to enter into payment obligations for future years, for example for multi-year projects. This is no longer possible in the 2023 budget.
Gatzer’s letter states: “In order to avoid further burdens for future financial years, I therefore intend to block with immediate effect all commitment authorizations that are still available in individual plans 04 to 17 and 23 to 60 of the 2023 federal budget.” Gatzer refers to Section 41 of the Federal Budget Code, which regulates a budget freeze. The budgets of all ministries are affected by the individual plans mentioned. In addition, the individual plan includes 60 cross-departmental expenditures such as the climate and transformation fund and the 200 billion euro defense umbrella to curb energy prices. The only exceptions to the ban are constitutional bodies such as the Federal President, the Bundestag, the Bundesrat and the Federal Constitutional Court.
However, finance ministry sources emphasize that the measure will not affect current spending this year. “Existing obligations will continue to be met, but no new ones may be entered into,” it says.
According to Reuters, government circles also made it clear that Lindner was not going it alone: ”It was agreed upon and makes sense,” Reuters quoted a person familiar with the matter as saying. Dem Mirror said SPD parliamentary group deputy Detlef Müller: “Every city and municipality would have to do that too.”
A spokeswoman for the Ministry of Economics led by Robert Habeck (Greens) also said on Tuesday morning: “That is correct in the current situation.” This would avoid further burdens for future financial years.
The Federal Constitutional Court canceled 60 billion euros from the federal government on Wednesday because the transfer of unused Corona loans to the climate fund was unconstitutional. The government now lacks the money. There are also further clarifications from the court on the debt brake in the Basic Law and the legality of loans, which could also have consequences for the current 2023 budget and the planned 2024 budget.
On the day the verdict was announced, Lindner ordered a budget freeze only for the climate fund. Now this first emergency measure is being supplemented and expanded. As a result of the ruling, there is a “need to review the overall financial situation for the federal budget,” writes Gatzer.
The State Secretary is also leaving a back door open in the budget freeze. Gatzer writes: After the budget freeze, I can at best hold out the prospect of a release of commitment authorizations (…) requested by the ministries in special individual cases in the event of a need that cannot be denied in terms of factual and temporal aspects. “A particularly strict standard is applied to prove such a need”. So it’s a very small back door.